Injuries

[Tombot]

Injuries... oh yeah.. special topic to every RPG-Game.
Never understood why a lot of gamers try to downplay that topic so much.
Most gamers i know here in germany prefer the cinematic-thing.
You know.. like "if it doesnt kill you instantly, its just another scratch".
Its just some fluff to them.
I dont do that. I was influenced by some of the better westerns, or other, historical adventure-books/movies , where a bullet (or a car-crash) can mean instant death to anyone, any second. And where people have to deal with difficulties of healing, transporting injured people, and all that.

Even "light" injuries are not supposed to be ignored. A superficial wound maybe, yes. But a light wound should actually mean that one arm/leg could be non-functioning, while the rest of your body is working "all right".
But even that is quite a hindrance. A broken forearm (even if its not your "good" one, for most people the right one) is a real problem.
Even if you have painkillers.

The players in my games learned to worship their medics, cause their diagnosis-rolls give them an idea of what happend to them in terms of attribute-reduction.
If they dont have one of them around, they dont even know, how much damage they took - i just describe em the results.

I think this is a major part of any convincing, dramatic RPG (i dont use the term "realistic" - RPG`s are never realistic).
Thats why my players are tending to look for other solutions than combat, when they have a choice. Combat is killing and crippling people. Even the ones with injuries, which get not infected, or have just a light wound - it always take some time to be able, to act normal again.

Last time my players shot some marauders down, which suddenly appeared in their camp at dawn. Afterwards, one of them was still alive, but his right hand was totally crushed from a shotgun-round.
They took the crippled right hand off.
It was a bloody scene. They managed to save his life.
Oh man, THAT was dramatic... (they even had some pity for their former attacker - they are playing as some decent people wandering the wastelands).

[Targan]

Here's something about injuries that I've never seen ANY game account for: those aws**t injuries that happen every so often. Like the time I fell off the top of a moving M577 when we got ambushed at NTC and I dislocated my shoulder and cracked three of my ribs. Immediately quite debilitating, but once the PA popped my shoulder back into socket and put me into a rib binder, I went back to my platoon and kept going (and now, much later, I am having lots of problems with that shoulder). Or you're running across a field at night to get into position, step in a hole and bammo, you have combination broken/sprained ankle that takes 6 months to fully heal, but you grit it out and keep going with much trouble. Or you're just breaking track, your hand slips, and you end up with a deep laceration on your hand (no that wasn't me, but in T2K that could lead to a fatal infection).

No one has ever seemed to come up with any way to account for that sort of thing.

In my last campaign those sorts of injuries certainly occurred. And the game system handled them quite elegantly, often sparked by a critical failure on some skill or attribute check. For example the fall from the M577 could be the result of a critical failure on an initiative check at the start of the ambush and then a subsequent marginal or critical failure on a Climbing, Strength or Agility check. The broken/sprained ankle could be the result of a CF on a Running or Survival (Survival skill is used, among other things, for pathfinding in Gunmaster/Harnmaster) followed by a failure on a subsequent Agility check. Luck rolls and their levels of success or failure could also come into it.

And death from infection following serious injuries certainly occurred in my last campaign too. A replacement PC called "Tex" Walker (a member of B Troop in Dobrodzien who was recruited by Major Po) died from a streptococcus infection some weeks after being shot with several MG rounds, falling from the vehicle upon which he was manning the ring mounted weapon and having a leg run over by the vehicle following behind. There came a point where Major (and Doctor) Po told Tex that the available antibiotics were not working and he would soon die. As I recall, Tex's final request was that another PC cut out his heart after death and bury it in Texas.

Oh, and Nate - those are some gnarly scars. Congratulations for being too tough to die despite such brutal damage.

[natehale1971]

thanks Targan... ijust don'tknow if it's toughness or stupidity that's keepi me aroud.... especially since i can't find any female who'd be willing to look past all that and take a chane on being with me. it's been really... lonely.

[Adm.Lee]

Oh, and Nate - those are some gnarly scars. Congratulations for being too tough to die despite such brutal damage.

What he said.

One of my favorite TV shows has been "Firefly." While injuries didn't carry over from episode to episode, you can see people who are hurt, acting like they are HURT (primarily Captain Mal)-- moving gingerly, taking it easy.

In the easy-squeezey system of Savage Worlds (I've been talking about it a lot, I know), PCs can take 3 Wounds before passing out, but each one applies a -1 modifier to all die rolls. Levels of Fatigue also apply the same modifiers, and a referee is advised that minor injuries (like falling down a slope, but not really breaking anything) should be counted as Fatigue.

[natehale1971]

sometimes i think it wasn't being to tough to die... but being to stupid to just give in and die.

the fatgiue value modifiers would be something good to use.. in our campaign one of our characters was injuried during the break out... and while they switched out their main character to one who wasn't lmited... they did keep them as a secondary character who provided support for the campaign (their non-combat skills were used alot, and they ended up getting good as a sniper and support weapons gunner)... and their injury was pretty tame. a bullet that went through the meat on his thigh. the classic flesh wound form movies... but he really played it right.

[pmulcahy11b]

actually in my campaign there was a chiropractor and acupunturist in the Free City... they were a former PRC diplomat who found themselves stuck in Poland when the ballon went up.

One of the most creative characters I've seen was a Japanese Motocross rider who was in Poland for a competition, then got stuck there when the war popped. She wasn't much on combat skills, but know a lot about first aid, and she still had her motorcycle and made a damn fine scout, as well as mechanic.

[natehale1971]

One of the most creative characters I've seen was a Japanese Motocross rider who was in Poland for a competition, then got stuck there when the war popped. She wasn't much on combat skills, but know a lot about first aid, and she still had her motorcycle and made a damn fine scout, as well as mechanic.

Now that's pretty interesting!

our most intersting PC was a adult model (the only porn she did was girl/girl) who got drafted under her real name. she was pretty interesting, she had gone to college and had a Russian Lit degree, she was fluent in Russian (read/write and spoke it with a convincing Russian accdent), UKrainian (spoke it as a native since her grandparents who raised her where Ukrainains), Polish, German and Finnish.

She was an enlisted intelligence specialist (interrogation and interpretor) who really, really hated the Soviets (goes back to her grandparents who told her about Holodomor that had killed their parents and siblings along with 10 million other Ukranians by starvation). Her interrogation technique would make Jack Bauer exclaim... "Holy shit bitch, you got issues"